Poll: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s Domestic Support on the Rise

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s domestic support is on the rise as Israel’s war against Hamas advances, according to poll numbers released on Thursday.

Israel’s Channel 14 published the results of a survey conducted by Direct Polls on Thursday evening, showing that if elections were held now, Netanyahu’s Likud Party would receive 25 mandates, one of its best numbers since the October 7 massacre — the most brutal attack on Jews since the Nazi Holocaust.

In a matchup for prime minister between Netanyahu and his longtime rival, Benny Gantz, Netanyahu is the preferred candidate, securing 46 percent of the total sample’s support compared to Gantz’s 33 percent. In Channel 14’s latest poll, Gantz’s National Unity Party received 23 mandates.

The poll comes as Republican officials continue to lambaste the Biden administration for withholding crucial ammunition from Israel in its war on the Hamas terror group, accusing Biden of “carrying water for the pro-Hamas mob” to “appease his radical anti-Semitic base” and the Democrat party’s “pro-Hamas wing” for his own personal political gain.

On Thursday, former President Donald Trump accused the “crooked” and “weak” commander-in-chief of “taking the side of these [Hamas] terrorists” just as he has “sided with the Radical Mobs taking over our college campuses”

As Breitbart News reported, several news outlets have confirmed that the Biden administration is withholding 3,500 bombs from Israel, which is currently battling Hamas, a U.S.-designated Islamic terror group that attacked the Jewish state in October in an unprecedented and particularly brutal massacre.

In addition, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed at the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on Wednesday that the U.S. is withholding a shipment of weapons from Israel over concerns about its ongoing attack on Hamas in Rafah — though the Jewish state’s security depends on disbanding Hamas’s remaining battalions there.

Subsequently, Biden confirmed on CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront that he had begun to limit transfers of American weapons to Israel out of moral opposition to operations in Rafah.

“I’ve made it clear to Bibi [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] and the War Cabinet. They’re not going to get our support if, in fact, they go into these population centers,” he said, referring to those in Rafah. “We’re not walking away from Israel’s security. We’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”

“We’ve held up the weapons,” he added:

In response, radical “Squad” member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) celebrated the president’s declaration, insisting that “This is what young people across the country were protesting for.”

Critics of Biden’s decision have argued that withholding weapons that Congress has already authorized, absent any finding of human rights violations by Israel, is unconstitutional and violates the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.

Israeli leaders have expressed determination to defeat Hamas regardless of international support, with Netanyahu and other officials insisting that Israel will continue its military operations against the terror group with or without the backing of the United States or other allies, including Britain. 

On Thursday, the Israeli premier again affirmed Israel’s readiness to confront Hamas alone if necessary, invoking the unity and determination from the Jewish State’s war of independence.

“Today, we are much stronger. We are determined, and we are united in order to defeat our enemies and those who want to destroy us,” the prime minister said, adding that “If we need to stand alone, we will.”

This sentiment has been reiterated in various statements in which Israeli leaders have emphasized the necessity to pursue operations in Gaza, particularly in areas like Rafah, as a crucial part of their strategy to dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities, even if it means standing alone against global opposition.

The Jewish State is currently at war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip following the October 7 massacre, whereby the terrorist group perpetrated the deadliest attack against Jewish people since the Nazi Holocaust. The massacre saw the torture, rape, execution, immolation, and abduction of hundreds of Israeli civilians, as well as widespread Palestinian support for it.